In The Woods
by opera.74
Summary: A brief interlude about what happened between Mr Gold and Belle in the woods by the wishing well just after the curse broke. A small present to all readers of 'Body and Soul' and 'Golden Dust' to celebrate the beginning of OUAT season 4. A pwp, really.


IN THE WOODS

Nothing seems to have happened; yet everything is changed.

The mist recedes as if it has never been there. The wind dies. The forest stands still, yet full of gentle humming of distant birds. Sunlight filters through thinning treetops, its' golden speckles dropping on the thick carpet of fallen leaves that covers the ground, brightening everything up. The air is golden and breathes with hesitant warmth, and the autumn day seems to promise spring.

The girl's face glows in the reflected light; her auburn hair catches the sun and seems to sparkle, just as the autumn leaves over her head. She seems to be a part of this forest, of this imperceptibly changed world – reinvented, fresh, warm and alert to everything around and inside it. Her beautiful blue eyes are shining brighter than the sky above, and, looking into them, he wonders, as he had always wondered, at their dept. He was wrong to compare them to the sky – they are like mountain lakes, clear and deep and calming; yet the mountain lakes are always cold, and her eyes are warm. And they do not reflect the light, as the surface of the lake does. They are the source of light – it comes from within. Sentimental fools say that the eyes are windows to the soul. With her, this comparison does not sound sentimental or foolish; through her eyes, he can literally see her soul – her pure, generous, long-suffering heart, a heart broken by him, yet still so true to him that the instant she remembered herself, she spoke of her love. She spoke of it with fearless simplicity, brushing away everything bad and sad that happened between them in the past, absolving him of all guilt and regrets, swiping away dark memories, canceling all his arguments against their union – the arguments that still stand between them, but are ignored by her in her divine determined blindness. She simply cast all troubles aside, as if saying: 'These things do not matter. Only we matter – you and me, together again. There is no past – there never was. We live here, now'. Her eyes said that. Her embrace said that. She embraced him as easily and with such trust as if nothing was wrong between them in the past; as if he did not reject her, as if they were not separated. She just looked into his eyes, and walked into his arms, and he was disarmed – he was defeated by her directness, her absolute certainty of their destiny.

But wasn't it always so? He was forever the doubtful one; he deliberated, calculated, made plans and schemes; well, he had to – the few decisions he made at the spur of the moment were fatally wrong, and he spent his life trying to undo things that he's done rashly. She made decisions, jumped to conclusions, acted impulsively – yet everything she did carried a sense of _rightness_ about it, as if she had some unerring instinct for things good and true. In the past, even as he opposed her impulsive actions, he felt that he is wrong to be doing so; and in the aftermath life unfailingly showed him that he _was_ wrong. Perhaps he had learned his lessons – as she looks up at him now, earnest, hopeful, trusting, he feels ready to succumb to everything she wishes of him. He knows the power of truth her eyes transport.

Or perhaps the power of these eyes is such because they are so blindingly, unbelievably beautiful. Great beauty is in itself an argument hard to dispute; her beauty, for him, is a thing beyond comparison, and therefor all-powerful. She is breathtakingly beautiful now, in this soft autumn sunlight, and, looking at her uplifted face, he feels his throat clench, his eyes mist, and his heart tremble as the reality of having her here, alive and breathing, hits him anew. As she walked into his shop today he was just too stunned to really, really appreciate the whole significance of her return. He was too dazed to _feel _it. Or, perhaps, they were not themselves yet – he having no magic and she having no memory of him, and their perception of each other was blurred. Now her beauty glows anew – it is greater than before, greater than he remembered it. People tend to remember lost things as better and sweeter than they really were; pictures of our past are always perfect. With her, it is different. He held her in his memory as the most beautiful, fragile and exquisite creature he ever knew; one could not form an image more ideal than the way she was preserved in his pained memories. Yet here she stands before him, and she is more beautiful than he could ever imagine. And she is _real_.

She is so beautiful, and he thought – he knew, just an hour ago – that he'd never see her again, and his regrets over her loss were marring the excitement of this great, all-important day; the day for which he labored and waited, the day the curse would break, and he would be able to go on with the task of finding his son. That was what he lived for; that was the meaning of his existence. Yet now, looking at her lovely face, taking in her features, everything in her, dark glossy hair and pale brow, fluttering eyelashes and perky nose, mesmerizingly deep eyes and exposed throat, vein beating softly under ivory skin, and her lips, especially her lips, wet and parted, dark pink in color, exactly the color of rose petals, and just as velvety and fresh to the touch – he remembers how it felt, to touch her lips with his… Now, as he looks at her, the urgency of his task leaves him. He can hardly remember what the task is; he certainly has no energy and no heart to attend to it. His heart is busy waking up to myriads of small and lovely things it felt when he first knew her. The awe – fear, almost – of seeing her for the first time and knowing that he is looking at his destiny. The soul-wrenching sadness at her tears. The wild elation at her presence – her closeness. The endearment of her youth, her naivety, her purity and even her bossiness; she always tended to order him around a bit, his little princess, so sure that she knew what's best for him, and he found it incredibly touching – until that horrible moment when she decided that breaking his curse was 'best for him'. The sounds, the smells, the sights and thoughts he lived through in those dazzlingly hopeful months that she shared with him. The tenderness and the destructive force of her curse-breaking kiss. The mad excitement of hopes fulfilled, the ravaging pain of them being crushed. The warmth, physical warmth of her lips on his, of her arms around him. The anguish of his passion; the humility of his love.

He never let himself remember all that, after she was lost – after he turned her away and destroyed her for the sake of the magical power he needed to rectify his earlier mistakes. He knew he had no right to think of all the light and love she meant for him; not after he betrayed her. His memories of her stayed slightly detached from his mind: he did not dare to touch them. Thinking of her fully would have meant thinking of her as if she was alive, and he had no right to that – and he could not stand that. He felt that his heart would literally break if he thought of her as if she was alive, if he lived through all his love for her again. So now, when she is here, his heart is flooding with everything that was denied it for years, and he feels reawaken to life, he is more alive than he ever was, and he wonders, briefly, if detachment from the memories of her was the reason he never felt truly himself in this new world. He thought it was the absence of magic; that would have been obvious explanation. But perhaps magic was secondary to the memories of her. He knows it is irrational to thinks so – he knows exactly how he brought magic into this land. But she brought magic into his life, when she walked into his shop today. Perhaps _she_ is his magic; after all, magic is emotion, and there is no emotion stronger in him then his love for her.

No, he has no heart for missions and redemptions and future deeds or past regrets now. His heart is all here, in this suspended moment, at once unreal as the greatest of miracles and maddeningly, painfully sensual. Dazed by the eeriness of this day, at the same time he is incredibly alert to their physical reality. He stares at her lips as she talks, and yearns to taste the wetness of her mouth, and there is nothing romantic about his yearning – it is intensely physical. He wants to touch her tongue with his, to suck on it, to taste her saliva and the salty sweat on her lips – he wants to be completely real around her. They are new people in a new world; he is very aware that his body is changed, that new power entered it in a new way here, in this land no longer devoid of magic. But, changed as it is, there is one thing about his body that is unchangeable: his longing for her. It is eternal, undiminished, intense, and right now, as he breathes in her warm smell, it seems about to reach the limit of his endurance. He waited for her for so long. He cannot wait anymore; his want needs to be fulfilled, or else something in him would snap. Too many years of dreaming and imagining touching her, being with her. He wants to _feel_ her now.

His senses are assaulted by her presence: he looks at her, he can smell her hair and her skin, slightly sweaty in the warm day, he hears her voice, gently arguing with him over the fate of his enemies; he hardly registers the words, the sound of her voice is enough to lull him into golden illusion of a world impenetrably perfect. Idly he wonders at her self-assurance – they were separated for years, and even before that he never showed much tendency to obey her, yet she is all ready to govern him, telling him what he should or shouldn't do. Perhaps she is also feeling like a new person in a new world, and it affects her behavior: she used to be so shy of him, and she is much more confident of herself now. Or perhaps she knew all along, without being told, that her power over him is infinite, and now just acts upon this inner knowledge. And she is right, of course: he would do anything she asked of him.

'Promise me', she says. 'Promise me, and we can be together'.

It does not, at the moment, matter what she's asking of him – what is it exactly that he should promise her. They both know she is talking of more then mercy to his enemies. She looks at him with such forceful hope. Her face holds so much promise of a different kind. With the same simple directness of her declaration of love she has now spoken of his – their? – different, deeper and darker needs. 'We can _be_ together', she said. He can _be_ with her. He. With Her. His mind is ready to supply an array of images, shameful in their stark directness; images part memories, part dreams. Her breasts, close to his face, an inch away from his mouth as he held her in his arms when she fell from the ladder in his castle. The imagined whiteness of her thighs as she opened her legs for him, in his ravings, as he dreamed of her in the solitude of his chamber. Her breath, sweet and hot on his skin as she reached to kiss him by the spinning wheel. He had spent so many hours reliving those brief exhilarating instants of closeness with her – he had spent an eternity wishing to _be_ with her. And she let him know, now, that she was thinking of same things – she wanted same things. She must have wanted him just as urgently as he wanted her if she felt the need to speak of _being together_, to indicate it as their most immediate need. And the look of her eyes tells him that she certainly wasn't speaking of walking by his side holding hands. She wants what he wants – or so it seems.

Just imagine it. His pure, playful and untouchable princess.

He touches the soft skin of her cheek, and his fingertips get hot, instantly – he wonders that she doesn't jump from him, scalded.

She looks at him, all expectation and hope.

'Yes', he says. 'Yes, sweetheart, I promise'.

She gives a weak, happy smile, and sighs with relief, tension of not knowing his mind gone from her small body, and walks into his arms again.

He lowers his head to kiss her. He cannot wait anymore. He cannot talk, or walk anywhere, or think of anything but touching her, pressing his lips to hers.

Oh how different this kiss is from the last – the only – kiss that they shared before. Despite the fact that he had spent months dreaming of kissing her, back then, he did not expect that kiss – wasn't prepared for it. Can one ever be prepared for a miracle? Then, despite the torrent of emotions and the curse-breaking force of that kiss, the kiss itself was so chaste as to be almost devoid of sensuality. It seemed that she just touched his lips with hers; she was so eager for what was to happen after – his transformation – that he wasn't sure she felt the actual thing happening. None of them… enjoyed it, that kiss that changed their lives so dramatically; the magical event overshadowed the miracle of mutual touch. So, being a pinnacle of their love, that kiss still remained forever a dream, a distant memory of unfulfilled promise.

That promise is about to be fulfilled now.

His whole life seems to be on his lips as they touch her lips, and their imagined warmth and wetness become reality; he licks the satin softness, the gentle smoothness of the insides of her mouth as she opens it wider for him, letting him in with a soft gasp. Oh, this is not going to be brief – he is going to kiss her long and deep, kiss her for eternity, kiss her for all the years of not kissing her, exploring her, reaching into her, until she moans – until his kiss would feel like a seal of his possession of her, a foretaste of an ultimate possession to come – and to come soon. He kisses her with utmost dedication, as if kissing her is extremely serious and important task – the most important thing he did in his life. His jaw moves, he deepens the kiss more and more, and he is rewarded by the sight of her eyelids fluttering, half-closed, and her eyes mellowing as she looks into his eyes, and at this dreamy look of hers his insides clench, and he draws her towards him, wishing to fit her small body into his, so that every curve finds its' hollow and they are joined together like proverbial halves of the whole.

He has to let her go, for an instant – she is breathless. She looks transported, all wonder and awe, as she leans on his shoulder and, as her face moves close to his, the tip of her nose brushes his lower lip in a gesture so intimate that his heart unravels. He crushes her in his embrace, so strongly that it must hurt. She is alive, she loves him, she wants him, she is here, in his arms, so warm, so palpable, she is all solid, all flesh and bone and skin, here, for him, he can touch her, he can bury his fingers in her hair, he can put his hand on her exposed neck and stroke it, he can tilt her head back and kiss her throat, he can press his face to her skin and smell it, vibrating inside as some animal, raw, uninhibited, direct and honest, his body human, his instincts wild, his need blinding.

Her face is pressed to his neck as she whispers, tickling his skin with the air of her words: 'Do you remember how I embraced you in the woods?'

'Of course I do'. He speaks into her hair, also in whisper.

'Did you love me then?' She lifts her head, wishing to see his eyes.

His heart constricts. 'Do you have to ask?'

She smiles, giving a small nod. 'No. No, I don't think I do'.

He looks at her, eyes smiling tenderly. 'Did you?..'

She doesn't answer. He did not have to ask, either.

She frowns, ever so slightly, a shadow of old grief in her eyes, and she asks: 'Why did you send me away?'

He looks into her eyes, suddenly transported back into their past, trapped in the gentle and scary anticipation of unavoidable fall, balancing on the edge of precipice. 'Why did you come back?..'

She did not answer him then, not properly, and she does not answer now. She just lifts her hand, and lets her small, warm and soft palm touch his cheek, tangling her fingers in his hair. 'It is so soft. I touched your hair as I embraced you, back then. I kept thinking of it, all the way back to the castle. Of how soft and silky your hair is, and how warm the skin'. She smiles, sadly.

He thinks of all the hundreds of ways in which he hurt her, and shudders. Her fingers burn him, her gentle touch is almost painful, for somehow it tells him of all the wasted time, all the futile suffering they endured, of all the pain that could have been pleasure, of all hopes and regrets. All the time he loved her and longed for her, she loved him and longed for him. She embraced the green beast he was then, and mused over the warmth of his skin. She could have been his, even back then. He could have been hers. They could have been together. And he let it all slip away.

She moves her hand and places her fingertips on his lips, delicately, as if a butterfly touched him with its wings, and something in him shutters. There are no thoughts left in him, he is all senses and desires, shameless, open, the way he was in his dreams of her back then when he was a green beast, the last time he allowed himself to dream of her and desire her.

His breathing quickens, and his eyes go dark as his tongue touches her fingertips and his lips close over them. Her eyes go wide in surprise; she is shocked and exited all at once. She must feel the change in him. She must sense that, though looking his sad human self, he is the green creature she fell in love with, inside. She smiles uncertainly, but he has no time for smiles now; he gives her fingers a gentle bite, and takes her hand in his, entwining their fingers, caressing her wrist, and lets it go so he could embrace her. It is ages since he kissed her – the whole five minutes must have passed!.. She needs to be kissed again.

He cups her face in his hands, and attacks her lips. He wants them open and raw for him, he wants them swollen and soft for him, he wants them open and wet as those other lips that hide between her thighs; he wants to kiss them endlessly before he moves to kiss those other ones, there. His hands leave her face and move down, towards her shoulders, and he is annoyed to feel the harsh fabric of her coat. It has to go. Wordlessly, still not letting go of her lips, he makes to remove the coat. Wordlessly, not questioning him once, she helps him ease the coat down her arms. It falls to the ground at her feet. She has nothing but her hospital gown on, now, and as he closes his arms behind her back he runs his hands down her spine, right to her buttocks, remembering how soft and smooth her back was as he watched her in her silk dress back in her father's castle. He wants to touch this skin of hers – he needs to touch it, he wanted to touch it for years and years and years!.. Unthinkingly, he pulls the hem of her dress up, brushing her thigh with his knuckles, and he is undone. A brief touch is not going to be enough – now, when he had tasted a drop of poison, he needs to drink the whole cup. He pulls the dress further up, and his hands rest on her buttocks, and he draws her to him, sharply, pressing her half-exposed body to his groin, letting her feel his hardness.

He feels quite insane.

She gasps, even as he kisses her. He lets her go for an instant, to take a look at her face. She is startled, and flushed, her eyes are wild as his eyes must be, and her lips are swollen, just as he wanted them to be.

She looks at him boldly with those blazingly blue eyes of hers. And then, wordlessly, she reaches to undo his tie.

The strip of cool silk falls onto the ground by her coat.

He holds his breath as her fingers move to his shirt collar, unbutton it, and touch his skin. Desire ripples through his entire body, searing like pain, and he has to shut his eyes, momentarily, throwing his head back, and swallow. When he opens his eyes, he meets her intense, fascinated gaze. There is a shade of triumph in her eyes; she knows her power over him, and it excites her.

They must be both mad. Surely they are. What on earth are they doing?

Yet none of them is going to stop, it appears.

Holding his gaze, she presses her palms to his naked chest, and moves them upwards to his shoulders, making as if to remove his shirt and jacket at once. His cufflinks hinder them, for a second, but he just tears at his sleeves to free himself.

Now his clothes are on the ground by her coat, too. She looks at his bared torso, her eyes half-closed, and she bites her lower lip. His heart beats wildly in his chest. What does she see in him? What does she think of him? He is an old man; there is nothing attractive in his nakedness. 'You are not as ugly as you think you are', she once said to the green reptile that he was. Just how ugly is he for her, now? And then she takes a step forward, and her hands come to rest on his back, and she runs her palms along his spine, across his ribs, up to his shoulder-blades, with an air of having wanted to do so for a very long time, eyes half-closed in pleasure, and then she presses her face to his chest, kissing him right over the thundering heart with warm, wet lips.

And his heart stops as he realizes, fully and finally, that she is, indeed, his.

His fingers tremble as he touches her back, and she lifts her face, giving him a quick smile. She kicks off her sneakers and stands barefoot, her pale toes, perfect as everything about her, very bright against the mossy ground. He falls on his knees to kiss them, to kiss her feet, and lets his lips travel up her legs; he kisses her knee-cups, and his fingers caress tender skin at the back of her knees, and her legs give way – she moans, softly, as she comes down onto the ground beside him. They are kneeling, facing each other, letting their hands rush wildly and blindly across each other's bodies, feeling, touching, grasping for more. He bends backwards to remove his shoes and socks. She moves away to pull up her dress, but he takes hold of her hands, stalling her – he needs to do it himself. Slowly, painstakingly careful not to touch her skin, for even the briefest touch would destroy him now, he pulls the drab gown up, up her thighs, up her abdomen, over her breasts, up her outstretched arms, and over her head. His eyes are closed at his own boldness. But, as the dress falls away, he opens them, and looks for the first time at the body he dreamed of a thousand times.

She is more beautiful than he ever imagined. Kneeling in front of him, naked, holding her breath, her eyes glowing, her lips parted, her hair wild, her full and rounded breasts pale in the green shade of the forest, her nipples small and dark, her navel gentle as a child's, her thighs slim, her pubic hair dark auburn as her locks.

He sways, literally. His mouth is dry. He must have stopped breathing. His hands shake uncontrollably as he reaches to touch her – to lay his fingers on her breast, to cup it, to hold it in his palm, to stroke the nipple with his thumb. He must be dreaming. Surely this couldn't be happening in reality. Yet he would never have let himself have a dream so wild. He would not dream of her throwing her head back, eyes closed, with a smile of bliss at his touch. He would not dream of the hundreds of blindingly beautiful little things that comprise the reality of being with her: a small birthmark on her upper arm, a film of sweat between her breasts, a tiny leaf caught in her hair, the hardening of her nipples as he touches them, the short and shallow sounds of her labored breathing. He would not dream of her hand, shaking as his hands shook, reaching to undo his trousers. He would not dream of her hand lingering on his erection, in hesitation and awe, a touch of her fingers almost breaking him to pieces.

God knows how he struggled out of his trousers – he did not register that. His mind must be giving way, overcome, for the world appears to him in flashes. There she is, falling softly back on her discarded clothing, spreading out in front of him as he kneels over her, not touching at first, just looking, taking in the sight of her. She looks back at him, and touches his thigh. His toes dig into the moss as he tries to control himself. He reaches to touch her, he runs his palms all over her body, gently, pausing at her breasts, caressing her inner thighs, and she gives small, involuntary shudders at his every touch, shudders of pleasure – so her mellow eyes tell him, and then he leans down to kiss all the places that he just caressed, filling her navel with his tongue, sucking her nipples, and she moans. She _moans_ for him. He draws her legs apart, and stares at her, opened and exposed, as beautiful there as she is everywhere. Her breathing is labored as he touches her, his hand drowning in her wetness. His eyes are fixed on her, trans-like, mesmerized, as he lowers his head, and presses his face to her open body, and she cries out, softly, as he licks her lower lips, once, twice, and then again and again, tasting her joy, her youth, her desire for him. She is salty and sweet and slightly metallic. He touches her with his hand, he finds her narrow opening and pushes his middle finger inside her, very gently, so as not to scare her. She arches her back, pressing herself into his palm, urging him on.

She props herself up on her elbows, suddenly, and looks at him – crouching by her side, dark eyes intense, face drawn, nostrils flaring, hair fallen across his brow, all alert in the golden-green shade of the forest, a wild thing, a creature of the woods. She looks at him just as he looks at her – with unbelieving awe and open longing. And then, suddenly, impulsively, as is her habit, she swiftly bends towards him, and kisses his aroused body, closing her lips over him briefly, giving him just one long lick, one hesitant suck. He hisses, his teeth bared in a painful snarl, and grabs her hair, all gentleness gone – he cannot be gentle, for he is about to die, tortured to death by her careless tenderness. She looks up into his face, her lips swollen and dark, and he kisses her, fiercely, and his own taste on her lips drives him mad. She clutches his shoulders as they both fall on the ground. Supporting himself with one hand, he uses the other to spread her legs, again, and thrusts into her, sharply, eyes opened, looking into her eyes, widened in shock. Never letting go of her lips. She gasps into his mouth, and stiffens for an instant, letting him fill her, feeling him fill her. And then her insides clench around him, and she thrusts forward to meet his next thrust, to urge him on. And his mind and his very self abandon him; he exists only as a body to possess her and be possessed by her, a flesh to touch her flesh, a blood to be mixed with hers.

He is gone – he is no more. He is Her. Yet possessed as he is, he is strangely aware of himself: of his bony fingers digging into the ground as he supports himself, and smearing her breast with earth as he moves to caress it, of his skin brushing against her inner thighs with every thrust, of his yearning gathering force with every instant he spends inside her, the limit of his control looming closer and closer as his breath catches and he stifles a groan. And he is aware of her – of her upturned face, with eyes closed and mouth parted, of her breathing, irregular yet gaining its' own rhythm, of her arms spread, fingers clutching at fallen leaves, of her breasts gently rippling at his thrusts, of her feet pressed against his back, of her smell, aroused and arousing, mixing with his, of her insides getting hotter and tighter as her breathing quickens, of her low outcry when she can take no more and becomes, ultimately, his.

He is gone, he is no more, he is all inside her, listening to her moans, trembling with her body, giving himself to her at the final clenches of her insides, sobbing with joy. He is gone and yet he is, strangely, himself again, the part of him, which was severed by their separation finally returned to him. No more a broken-hearted beast weeping over a chipped cup. He is a man again. For the first time in centuries, he is comfortable in his human body. It is as if by sharing her young love with him, she has given him back his youth, took him back to the time when, unsoiled by magic and untouched by suffering, he was just a country lad, ungainly, funny, shy and slightly weird, yet still able to surprise his young bride with vigor so contrasting with his appearance. He was happy then, living a human life and believing his happiness to be genuine, and taking his beautiful bride's infatuation with him, and his for her, for love. He is glad he had this experience of uncomplicated foolish human happiness. It gave him perspective – having known that, he is able to appreciate the great difference between simple contentment and true bliss, between warm affection and true love. He knows the difference between being an awkward youth, unexpectedly loved by a pretty girl, and being an ugly man miraculously loved by a beautiful woman – really, really loved by her. For that's who he is, now; sounds like a fairy-tale, almost.

When his consciousness and senses return, he finds himself spread on the ground by her side. They are both on their backs, holding hands, shoulders touching, naked bodies cool in the golden-green shade, faces solemn, staring into the church-like ceiling of leaves over them, glimpsing blue patches of the sky between tree-tops; defenseless, exhausted yet blissful and strong, born anew, full of promise, full of life. She turns to look at his face, and she smiles, shyly, her eyes shining. He smiles back. He knows he should be ashamed of what he'd done – devastated, even. He did an ugly, feral thing – like an animal, he ravished the delicate virgin of his dreams among the woods. Yet he cannot feel any shame or guilt – may be not yet, but still. He feels a little awkward, a bit embarrassed, perhaps, but strangely lighthearted. Mischievous, even – much as he sometimes felt in the past, when he first loved her and felt no shame at dreaming of her – not for a while, anyway. He felt no shame, for all his ravings, passionate as they were, were brought on by love, and love knows no shame.

He had doomed their love – he nearly destroyed it, and cast a shadow even at its memory. He thought he had no right to this love, and walked through his darkness humbled and resigned. Yet now she is returned to him – a miracle gave him back everything he thought lost. Fate was kind to him. In giving him back this girl, it said: 'You can be happy, just as any other man'. He was wrong to consider himself doomed to loneliness. Fate has given him a second chance, and he would be mad to spoil it with regrets and shame.

He smiles. Belle wanted him to be 'an ordinary man'. Perhaps giving him this simple happiness is her way of breaking his curse.

'What are you smiling at?' Her voice is soft, gentle. She really is here, with him, and that makes him master of time and space. Nothing is beyond his powers now.

'Nothing'. He closes his eyes, briefly, cherishing the perfection of the moment.

'Come on, you are _happy_!' Her voice is full of wonder and surprise, as if she never expected him to be happy. Delighted, too, for she knows it is her doing.

He gives a non-committal grunt, and responds: 'I am not unhappy'.

She gasps in mock anger, recognizing the phrase, and pops herself up to look at him. Her hair hangs loose, tickling his face. Her eyes suddenly become serious. 'I love you. You chose not to believe me when I said so before. But you will believe me now'.

He looks into her earnest blue eyes, drowning in them, as always, bowed over by her beauty, as always. Her naked breast brushes his chest, nipple flattened against his skin, her thigh presses to his thigh, very close to his groin, and his body stirs at her closeness, again. He doesn't know what to say, so he just lifts his hand to touch her shoulder, as much for his pleasure as for her comfort, and frowns: 'You are cold. Goodness, what am I thinking of? What a beast. Come on, let us take you home'.

She giggles as they gather their clothes from the ground; she seems completely unfazed by what happened between them – by the uncommon circumstances under which it happened. Her laugher is infectious – he chuckles, too. She stops short, clutching some garment to her chest, and turns to face him, suddenly solemn again – tearful, almost. 'I have missed it. Your giggle. You cannot even start imagining how much I missed it – missed everything about you. You must promise me… Promise that we shall be together forever. That nothing will tear us apart. After all, what is you magic for if not for that?'

He stares into her troubled face, suddenly aware of their past and present again. His darling, darling girl. How much she suffered. How many things he has to make amends for. He draws her close, and presses his brow to hers, and looks into her eyes, willing them to light up with hope and joy again. The miracle of her presence hits him anew and, pressing her face to his neck, holding her in a protective embrace he whispers into her hair, deliberately repeating himself:

'Yes, sweetheart. I promise'.

She gives a happy, contented sob, kisses his neck, sending an exited shiver down his spine, wipes her tears with her palm, fusses about picking up his cane, and hand in hand, stealing furtively tender glances at each other, they start walking towards his house.

The forest is full of gentle humming of distant birds. Sunlight filters through thinning tree-tops.

The air is golden, and the autumn day seems to promise spring.


End file.
